Steve Heimel, APRN – Anchorage
The results are beginning to come in from the many investigations of BP’s Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. The company posted its own 193-page internal report on its website today. It says there were a number of warning signs that were not heeded. The report says that the gas that caused the explosion likely came up inside the casing of the well. The report blames both BP management, and the drilling contractor, Transocean, for not spotting trouble signs and for giving the okay to remove drilling mud from the riser – the pipe that extended from the wellhead to the surface. The report also blames Haliburton for a messy cement job inside the well casing that apparently left gaps that allowed the gas to pressure through. According to the internal report, there were signs that gas was coming up the riser 40 minutes before the explosion, but the crew did not become aware of it until eight minutes before the blowout, which killed 11 workers and sank the drilling platform.
Another report that was released today came from an oversight board set up within the Interior Department, recommending ways to overhaul federal monitoring and enforcement of offshore drilling.
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